FFXIII-2: Post Release Discussion

[Alkar]

Farmed materials to build a silver chocobo for Serendibitous and took about 3hrs last night. If you've gotten lucky coin but no trophy just bite the bullet and do some racing, it's not all that bad. Hopefully these episode dlcs have trophies or it's going back in the mail after 100%.

If Sazh DLC does have trophies you can expect some pretty annoying ones considering his scenario is made of minigames. That said I doubt they do or we'd have an achievement list leaked by now.

[Dylon]

tried doing the slot trick last night while watching TV and got nothing in about 5 hours of letting it auto-play. im gonna try closing the gate and see if the beginners luck might help but this fragment really is retarded SE bullshit at its best

[Alkar]

tried doing the slot trick last night while watching TV and got nothing in about 5 hours of letting it auto-play. im gonna try closing the gate and see if the beginners luck might help but this fragment really is retarded SE bullshit at its best

Make sure you also talk to the lady near the slots to check their status. Beginner's luck won't really help much if the slots are having a bad day.

[miokomioko]

Does closing the Serendipity gate reset your profits back to 0 for the +10,000 trophy?

[Alkar]

Does closing the Serendipity gate reset your profits back to 0 for the +10,000 trophy?

Well it doesn't reset the coins required for the fragment so I'm assuming it doesn't reset for the trophy either.

[Nevex]

I tried the Beginner's Luck thing and got my fragment after 1600~ turns (slots were in hot summer's day mode). I just used a rubber band and left it in auto-mode.
Imo it's just placebo stuff but there's no harm in trying.
I'm not touching slots ever again though.

For those who are interested, info on Sazh's DLC (it's from Gamefaqs so take it with a grain of salt):

I thought I would be nice to share some info with you guys, over at the state-side.

Sazh, Enhancer. He can grow up to lvl 45.
Has a starting ATB of 4, has 2 Crystarium Level Up bonuses, which can make him 6 ATB if you wish.

Upgraded Stats at lvl 45 were
773 Str
635 Mag
9129 HP

(I am assuming the player fed him Potents all the way through, but I am unsure as it was not mentioned)

His abilities are:
Critical Haste
Rare Item Finder +
Feral Speed II
Enhancement Boost (I forget the name in English, but the ability where the SYN duration are lengthened).

He Learns:
Brave
Protect
Shell
Vigilance
Vegil
Brave-ga
Vigilance-ga (or Guts/Gutsga)
Faith
Enfire
Enthunder
Enaero
Enblizzard
Boon

His Synchodrive/Feral Attack is, as you guessed, Cold Blood. So no haste...

To get Sazh, you will need to collect 40 Fortune Medals, which I am guessing you win or find them in the DLC, and you talk to the Master/Owner of Serendipity. The DLC gate is located on the empty gate on the bottom of the leftmost Colosseum.

You can only play as Sazh in this DLC, no Serah or Noel action. Also, the Serendipity in the game still does not allow you to play the poker-game - but the original writer of this little info-package speculates that once you beat the story in DLC, it should unlock. No word on whether or not you can get a multiple of Sazh crystals after you destroy it yourself.

As for the story that is involved, aside from all the card-games you will be playing, the content is relatively short. Give or take 2 hours to 3. Less if you consult guides that will eventually follow, since most of them seem to be derivations of fetch-quests we all know and love from every RPGs and MMORPGs.

I think I'm going to pass on this DLC. I hate card games not named Triple Triad and from the looks of it Sazh seems pretty meh.

[Burningthought]

I tried the Beginner's Luck thing and got my fragment after 1600~ turns (slots were in hot summer's day mode). I just used a rubber band and left it in auto-mode.
Imo it's just placebo stuff but there's no harm in trying.
I'm not touching slots ever again though.

For those who are interested, info on Sazh's DLC (it's from Gamefaqs so take it with a grain of salt):



I think I'm going to pass on this DLC. I hate card games not named Triple Triad and from the looks of it Sazh seems pretty meh.

Assuming all that is true, I might wait till my next paycheck to buy the DLC, just dropped $60 on SSX.

[Cichy]

I'm gonna pick it up after work, I'll let you know later how it is.

[Ratatapa]

Shouldn't be out till 10 PM ESt average right?

[Tobi]

Store usually updates around 6-7pm EST, sometimes before, sometimes afterwards.

[Xerlic]

Is there some recommended way to level monsters? ie Focus on levelling a bunch of monsters and infuse or should I just focus on levelling 2-3 main monsters and not care about the rest. I'm at the Archetype Steppe and I currently use White Lobo as a Rav and Flanitor as a Med and I just captured the Red Chocobo.

[Acturus]

Is there some recommended way to level monsters? ie Focus on levelling a bunch of monsters and infuse or should I just focus on levelling 2-3 main monsters and not care about the rest. I'm at the Archetype Steppe and I currently use White Lobo as a Rav and Flanitor as a Med and I just captured the Red Chocobo.

I use the guidebook, and it identifies the better long-term monsters as you encounter them, so I've snagged a Cloudburst, a Dragoon, a Bunkerbeast, etc as I first find them.

Unless you're determined to level up one of each monster, I'd look around the guides online, or let people here recommend monsters to use, and then just focus on them. I personally have infused one monster (not counting my racing Chocobo) to this point with exactly one ability, and was to give my Bunkerbeast Mediguard. I havven't felt disadvantaged so far, although I'm really still on Chapter 4. I imagine the infusions and levels will become more important as I move towards the harder aspects of the game towards the end.

[Alkar]

I tried the Beginner's Luck thing and got my fragment after 1600~ turns (slots were in hot summer's day mode). I just used a rubber band and left it in auto-mode.
Imo it's just placebo stuff but there's no harm in trying.
I'm not touching slots ever again though.

For those who are interested, info on Sazh's DLC (it's from Gamefaqs so take it with a grain of salt):



I think I'm going to pass on this DLC. I hate card games not named Triple Triad and from the looks of it Sazh seems pretty meh.

Using the slots manually increases your chances. I got into Super Victory Mode and hit the jackpot (5k coins) in less than 200 turns using Beginner's luck.

[Raldo]

Using the slots manually increases your chances. I got into Super Victory Mode and hit the jackpot (5k coins) in less than 200 turns using Beginner's luck.

Were you watching the slots or just pushing the buttons? I did manual for ~120 rolls, got nothing but the occasional Moogle or Choco lineup and said "Screw this". I was pushing buttons randomly. That said, I didn't have beginners luck nor did I check with the slots status lady because I wasn't using a guide and didn't know about beginners luck or what her sayings indicated.

[miokomioko]

I don't believe there is any skill involved in the slots whatsoever, even when played manually. Even when you try your hardest to time them, you will see the exact same patterns show up repeatedly, regardless of what order you stop them in. Also, you can tell that results are often predetermined by the sounds/lights that play when you pull the arm down. It's really just randomly determined each spin, but your odds simply drop if you auto-play instead of having to hit R1>Down>X>^>O every spin.

[Raldo]

I find that hard to believe. I'm sure there's some fudging involved, but when I watched the slots, I could easily get the first two lined up with that round... black... thing on several occasions in quick succession. When I just slammed on the buttons randomly, I got jack shit.

Note: I suppose you could still be right because I was never able to line up the third ... black thing, but I gave up pretty quickly because I hate slot machines.

[miokomioko]

Every time I lined up two microchus (black things), the third reel, no matter how I timed it, would always land in the same exact losing position. It didn't even vary with different failure reel positions, always the same... With enough of that crap I completely wrote off the idea of having any say in the slot machine results.

[Raldo]

Ah, I see what you mean. I did experience that exact same issue. Always landing with the moogle at the top of the reel, smugly looking at me; that pudgy bastard!

[Slycer]

I imagine the infusions and levels will become more important as I move towards the harder aspects of the game towards the end.

I never infused any monsters with anything, and I didn't even cap the levels of some of the ones I use, and I had no trouble killing all the monsters in the game (160 fragments). As long as Noel and Serah are well-leveled, you can survive most fights even with underleveled monsters. Just make sure you don't use some of those really early monsters that are really easy to take to level cap late in the game (the ones that cap around level 40 without ever going past grade 3 material). For most monsters, it's not so much about capping them, but more about getting them through the one section of their crystarium where they get huge stat bonuses. Gold Chocobo at like level 15, for example, is better than a lot of other COM monsters at level 50. Most monsters have one level where the bonus per upgrade is dramatically larger than before.

The only time I ever used infusion for anything useful was to develop a good chocobo for the race minigame. Other than that, I totally overlooked the system (though I could imagine coming up with some really powerful stuff via infusion, it's not necessary for any fight in the game).

[Necronus]

Every time I lined up two microchus (black things), the third reel, no matter how I timed it, would always land in the same exact losing position. It didn't even vary with different failure reel positions, always the same... With enough of that crap I completely wrote off the idea of having any say in the slot machine results.

I remember my first Visual Basic program in High School. I made a casino program with a slot machine. Since I was new to programming, I just determined the results of all three wheels as soon as you started them. They just did the same thing here with the third wheel in a more advanced way.